Don't Hurt People and Don't Take Their Stuff: A Libertarian Manifesto by Matt Kibbe
Authors: Matt Kibbe
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newly empowered citizenry, with their new tools of accountability, makes me an optimist, even though everything in this town and everything that President Obama has done to our economy and to our Constitution should make us despair about the future. Are you an optimist or are you a pessimist about the future of this country?
THOMAS MASSIE: This place is way more broken than I realized before I came here. Now that I’m here, I give it a fifty percent chance that we’re going to be able to turn this ship before we hit the shore. And a fifty percent chance that it’s going to take something big to wake people up and to get the changes we need. But the only thing I can do is fight to turn the ship. That’s what I’m working on. Instead of being home in Kentucky and preparing for the ship to hit the shore, I’m up here trying to avoid the shore.
MIKE LEE: I’m an optimist in a Churchillian sort of way. Winston Churchill is reported to have said, “The American people can always be counted on to do the right thing, after they have exhausted every other alternative.” I think we’re reaching that point where we have exhausted every other alternative, and we will be left with doing the right thing. That’s what the American people are doing. That’s what they’re saying. They want to return to a time when the people are sovereign, and they’re citizens, not subjects.
TED CRUZ: I’m incredibly optimistic. I’m optimistic because I think there is a movement that’s sweeping this nation of millions of Americans who are waking up and looking around. If you look at the past year, the rise of the grass roots, in fight, after fight, after fight in Washington, the grass roots have turned the fight around. Nothing scares elected officials more than hearing from their constituents, and in my view, liberty is never safer than when politicians are terrified.
DAVID SCHWEIKERT: I’m optimistic also, but be careful because sometimes I’m pathologically optimistic. How do you get the public, mom and dad, the young person, the person who’s trying to grow their life and their business, to be able to take that little bit of their time? And it’s not about writing a check, though those are helpful. It’s about reaching out to a FreedomWorks or other organizations and driving their voice, saying, “We’re paying attention, and we care.”
CHAPTER 8
T WELVE S TEPS
WHAT, EXACTLY, DO YOU want ?
I get this question all the time, inside the Capitol Beltway. Sometimes the hostility of the inquiry makes me feel like I’m participating in the drug intervention of an old friend. You’ve finally got their attention, and they feel trapped, busted. Then comes the denial, the paranoia, and the hostility. An addict will shoot at any messenger that delivers the bad news: You have a big problem, and the path you have chosen will not—cannot—end well.
This is precisely the way that official Washington has reacted to the citizens asking the tough questions of their two party representation. Obviously, those who ask this question typically have an agenda. They are trying to deflect attention, boldly claiming that Washington does not have a spending problem. An addiction to power? Not here; at least nothing that can’t be solved by giving the fixers another fix, more and more money and control. Without another government program, how will anything get better? The relentless clamor for more of your money rattles through Washington like junkies pleading for just one more hit.
One of the common critiques coming from progressives, the media, and chin-clutching establishmentarians inside the Beltway is that we are just against things. President Obama loves this particular straw man. We oppose a government takeover of health care, so we must be against people getting health insurance. We oppose federal meddling in education, so we must be against children learning. We oppose an omnipotent surveillance state, so we must be against the safety
THOMAS MASSIE: This place is way more broken than I realized before I came here. Now that I’m here, I give it a fifty percent chance that we’re going to be able to turn this ship before we hit the shore. And a fifty percent chance that it’s going to take something big to wake people up and to get the changes we need. But the only thing I can do is fight to turn the ship. That’s what I’m working on. Instead of being home in Kentucky and preparing for the ship to hit the shore, I’m up here trying to avoid the shore.
MIKE LEE: I’m an optimist in a Churchillian sort of way. Winston Churchill is reported to have said, “The American people can always be counted on to do the right thing, after they have exhausted every other alternative.” I think we’re reaching that point where we have exhausted every other alternative, and we will be left with doing the right thing. That’s what the American people are doing. That’s what they’re saying. They want to return to a time when the people are sovereign, and they’re citizens, not subjects.
TED CRUZ: I’m incredibly optimistic. I’m optimistic because I think there is a movement that’s sweeping this nation of millions of Americans who are waking up and looking around. If you look at the past year, the rise of the grass roots, in fight, after fight, after fight in Washington, the grass roots have turned the fight around. Nothing scares elected officials more than hearing from their constituents, and in my view, liberty is never safer than when politicians are terrified.
DAVID SCHWEIKERT: I’m optimistic also, but be careful because sometimes I’m pathologically optimistic. How do you get the public, mom and dad, the young person, the person who’s trying to grow their life and their business, to be able to take that little bit of their time? And it’s not about writing a check, though those are helpful. It’s about reaching out to a FreedomWorks or other organizations and driving their voice, saying, “We’re paying attention, and we care.”
CHAPTER 8
T WELVE S TEPS
WHAT, EXACTLY, DO YOU want ?
I get this question all the time, inside the Capitol Beltway. Sometimes the hostility of the inquiry makes me feel like I’m participating in the drug intervention of an old friend. You’ve finally got their attention, and they feel trapped, busted. Then comes the denial, the paranoia, and the hostility. An addict will shoot at any messenger that delivers the bad news: You have a big problem, and the path you have chosen will not—cannot—end well.
This is precisely the way that official Washington has reacted to the citizens asking the tough questions of their two party representation. Obviously, those who ask this question typically have an agenda. They are trying to deflect attention, boldly claiming that Washington does not have a spending problem. An addiction to power? Not here; at least nothing that can’t be solved by giving the fixers another fix, more and more money and control. Without another government program, how will anything get better? The relentless clamor for more of your money rattles through Washington like junkies pleading for just one more hit.
One of the common critiques coming from progressives, the media, and chin-clutching establishmentarians inside the Beltway is that we are just against things. President Obama loves this particular straw man. We oppose a government takeover of health care, so we must be against people getting health insurance. We oppose federal meddling in education, so we must be against children learning. We oppose an omnipotent surveillance state, so we must be against the safety
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